Wednesday, May 19, 2010

The NBA held their draft lottery last night and, per usual, it was enjoyable. The Wizards steal John Wall while the Sixers get Evan Turner. Not bad places for either one. They should be both be able to own those cities and help each franchise forget about their awful contracts (Arenas and Brand). And you had to be one ice-cold sonofabitch to not feel good for Abe Pollin's widow winning the #1 pick. Now let's hope this #1 pans out better for the Wizards than Kwame Brown did.

But let's get back to the lottery itself. I truly think that this is an amazing idea. There is drama. There is disappointment in the room for those reps who are picking high. It's always a weird mix of 20 year old black guys and 60 year old white billionaire owners. And this year we got a Communist! Amazing. The biggest surprise of the night may have been the capital knockers of Heather Cox on display. Not bad at all. Now someone give her a face transplant please.

I like the setup. Sure, you can throw your season in hopes of getting the #1 pick, but that doesn't mean you'll get it. It's still the luck of the draw. The NBA has figured out a way to make their 14 worst teams interesting for 30 minutes in May. This is a good thing. So why can't the NFL do this? Why doesn't the NFL do this?

I'm tired of seeing the Raiders and Lions picking in the top 5 every year. They act like they belong there. Why not make all the non-playoff teams enter a draft lottery? Run it 2-3 weeks after the Super Bowl so teams still have plenty of time to prep for the draft. Do you think that ESPN would publicize the shit out of this? The NFL Draft Lottery would bring in HUGE ratings.

Here's what I do: You put the 20 teams that didn't make the postseason into a hopper. The worst team in the league can pick no worse than fifth (and so on). And then EVERYONE ELSE HAS THE SAME ODDS. Who wouldn't watch this? Every single person in Pittsburgh would have watched this year wondering if they could draft Sam Bradford. Would the Jags still have taken Samoa Joe at #1? This would be amazing.

Maybe then we can stop rewarding the same shitty teams for still being shitty. What do you think? Does an NFL Lottery for draft slots sound like a good idea? I'll tell you this much, if you disagree with me, you are wrong. More NFL talk tomorrow unless something crazy happens tonight.

10 comments:

I'm not convinced the Sixers will take ET. They have a desperate need for a young big man, since their best one is Marreese Speights. Igoudala and Thad Young are similar size to ET too. I definitely think they should roll with Jrue and ET as their future, but a lot of NBA teams are dumb. ET would fit in beautifully with the Nets and their awesome Russian owner if he fell to them.

The NFL could only do a lottery if they had some sort of rookie cap thingy like the NBA does. Having a top 5 pick in the NFL is almost a burden as much as it’s a blessing due to inflating guarantees for rookie contacts

Even though this would likely hurt the Browns, I would love to see a lottery. Maybe that's just because I love to gamble?

This would also allow me to not be upset when the Browns win 4 meaningless games (except the game against Pitt) to end the season. There aren't many things the NFL can learn from the NBA, but this is definitely one of them.